Genevieve sighed and stepped once again out the back of the cart. She stared up at the wall for a full minute. Then another. Then a third. Time kept ticking anxiously by, and there was no sign of Marcie, no matter how hard Genevieve looked.

“All right, look, I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous,” the driver called back to her. “We can’t just sit out here and wait to be caught, we gotta get moving.”

“Hate to say it, girl, but she’s sounding just about right by now,” Baron concurred.

“Not yet,” Genevieve said firmly, stepping back into the cart. She was insisting now. Bringing out the royal voice, even if it made them resent her. “We have to give her at least a few more minutes. The guards will assume we’re long gone by now, they won’t be patrolling the walls yet.”

“They don’t gotta be patrolling, they just gotta poke their heads over their lil lookout post things. Like takin’ out their stupid little spyglasses and staring out into the badlands all ‘oh where’d they go where’d they go where’s that cart’ and then they look down and we’re just sitting here like a buncha maroons.” Queen shook her head, arms folded. “My vote’s on us getting out of here, too.”

“Please.” Genevieve persisted, softening her tone. She didn’t want to act like some spoiled child of nobility. But she couldn’t let them abandon Marcie. “We can’t leave yet. Just a little longer, I swear to you–”

All too close there was a huge explosion, loud enough that Genevieve could swear the cart shook a little. She stuck her head out the back to see a plume of smoke rising over the wall.

“All right, well, maybe we shoulda seen this one coming,” Baron said dryly. “Speak of the devil, blammo, there she is.”

“Where is she?” Queen asked. “You see anything?”

Genevieve stared up to the top of the city wall, fifteen feet high, and shook her head reluctantly. “N–no. Not yet. There’s nothing…”

She caught a glimpse of movement out the corner of her eye, all but hidden by the cloth roof covering the cart. “There! She’s up there!” She ran outside to get a better look and there was Marcie, up on top, backing up towards the edge. Two loud gunshots rang out as she fired at whoever was pursuing her, and she glanced over her shoulder, towards the ground below. Genevieve waved to her urgently, and then realized almost too late what she was planning.

“She’s jumping! Catch her!” Genevieve shouted.

Baron and Queen stared at her dumbfounded, but then Queen shrugged and said, “All right, whatever.” She stood up straight and held her arms out in position for a princess carry.

Not a second later a girl-shaped object dropped through the canvas ceiling. The whole covering came with her, and she fell directly into Queen’s arms.

“Drive,” Marcie said flatly, unfazed by being held, or by being wrapped in a tarp. “Drive. Drive. Drive drive drive drive.”

“Way ahead of you!” Samara yelled back. She didn’t need to coax the horses into running this time. They bolted as soon as they heard the horrible, grinding metallic shriek from the other side of the city wall, loud and terrible enough to make the walls themselves shake.

“What the hell is that?” Baron asked.

“Problem.” Whatever it was, it had made Marcie an even worse talker than usual. “Lemme go,” she said, kicking her legs as she tried to pull herself out of Queen’s grip and the large canvas sheet she was tangled up in.

Queen dropped her unceremoniously, and Marcie spun herself around in the air to land deftly on her feet atop the canvas. With her guns in her hands, she stepped forward, keeping steady balance as the horses turned back onto the road and the whole cart swung wide behind them. She raised her guns towards the city walls, and held them level despite the bumps and jolts of the cart.

The sun glinted off a piece of heavily polished steel, creating a spark of light near the top of the city wall. And then something rose up over the parapets.

It was big. The size of a small house, or at least a large shed. The first thing Genevieve could see over top the wall was its head, long and narrow. It had the vague outline of an animalistic snout made of jagged, broken metal, with singed, sparking copper threads poking out of it at wildly erratic angles. The vague remnants of a metal plate suggested there must have been something there before, some kind of design that gave the head shape and structure, but it had been blown apart, leaving only charred, broken remains.

The monstrous machine pulled itself up over the top of the wall with two short, stubby front legs. The design of it invoked some sort of reptile, something long and sharp and dangerous. As it leaped over top the wall Genevieve could see its long quadrupedal body, with a broad mechanical tail and four feet topped with frighteningly massive steel claws. When it hit the dirt outside the city the ground under their cart shook.

“Holy shit,” Baron said.

Queen tossed him his musket and crouched down with her own at the ready. “Don’t rip your head off yet. Least take your shot first. And make it fucking count.”

Marcie silently aimed her guns, and Genevieve retreated back to the pile of cargo, trying to make herself a small target once again. She slipped her earplugs back into her ears, and then held her hands over them too, because she simply didn’t know what else to do.

The robotic creature stood still for a second at the foot of the city wall, like it was processing something. Then it turned and seemed to lock onto the cart. Another second passed. And it burst forward like it had been shot from a cannon, dashing across the road towards them, closing distance at disconcerting speed.

Baron and Queen took the first shots. They aimed carefully and each landed clean hits on the front legs. The bullets hit and lodged in place, crumpling the metallic feet it was pulling itself forward on. For a second it seemed like they had successfully slowed the thing down, at the least, making its steps awkward and unbalanced. But it only lasted for a second before the creature’s gait adjusted with an unnatural, mechanical jerk. And it kept barreling forward as though nothing had been damaged at all.

Then Marcie opened fire.

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM

She peppered the beast with a barrage of bullets, blasting holes in the metal plating that covered it, blowing away chunks of its feet and its legs and what remained of its face. The horrible sound of grinding metal got worse with each new bit of damage she inflicted, but in the end none of it seemed to matter. The machine continued its chase unimpeded.

As it approached Genevieve could see the thing was riddled with holes, pockmarks up and down its body where Marcie’s bullets punched through it. None of them seemed to be slowing it even a little. Redundancy, Marcie had said that first day. Maybe this monster had more of it.

“Shit.” Baron tossed his musket aside, no longer interested in reloading it just to take another useless shot. “How the hell are we supposed to kill that thing?”

“Same as any of ‘em. Put a hole in the control unit. It’s gotta have one. Just haven’t found it.” Marcie was in constant motion, spinning her cylinders, swapping the clips in her guns, but she wasn’t panicked. Her movements were deliberate, practiced, steady, in control. “Shots don’t have enough power to bust all the way through, so I gotta get close. Hit it where there’s the least armor. Just ain’t found the angle.” She dropped one of the revolvers. Her tail picked it up out of the air and holstered it. “Don’t worry. I got it.”

“Ah good. She’s got it.” Queen sat back on a cargo crate and started loading her musket once again. “Sure ya don’t need anything from the rest of us?”

“Just drive,” Marcie said, two hands on the grip of her gun as she raised it towards the mechanical beast, her aim steady, her finger motionless on the trigger. “Keep ‘em running straight ahead.”

“I wasn’t gonna do a hell of a lot else!” Samara shouted.

The robotic thing kept charging for them, running across the dry badlands with a winding, sinuous gait, almost like it was swimming.

“It’s getting fuckin’ closer,” Baron muttered through gritted teeth.

Unfortunately, he was right. Inch by inch, the thing was catching up.

“This ain’t lookin’ especially brilliant, devil girl,” Queen said snidely.

“I got it,” Marcie barked, annoyed this time. “Just wait for it.”

The thing got even closer.

“Just wait for it,” Marcie repeated.

It was right behind them now. If the sharp, triangular metal plating around its head hadn’t been blown off, it would be touching the cart.

The thing reared back, metal screaming and grinding, sharp steel poised to attack, to crush and to rend. Its ruined mouth filled with angry sparks of lightning, popping and crackling with furious menace.

Marcie held perfectly still at the edge of the cart, cloak whipping about her as the wind rushed by.

She muttered under her breath. “Should be right…”

The monster leaped. Reams of jagged steel and shrieking electric discharge plummeted toward the cart. Marcie framed perfectly between the jaws about to snap her body in half.

Her trigger finger twitched.

“There.”

BLAM

A gunshot rang out across the empty badlands. And seconds later it was followed by the squealing, grinding, metallic cacophony of a robotic beast crashing dead to the ground.

EPISODE 1 - BLACK POWDER WEDDING
END